Copenhagen (Denmark) – At the opening ceremony to the 15th United Nations Conference on Climate Change, the secretary general of the meeting, Yvo de Boer, summoned the leaders of the 192 countries participating in the debates to turn proposals into concrete actions for reducing the impact of climate change on the planet. “The clock has almost ticked down to zero. The time has come. We must turn proposals into action,” said de Boer, in the short address that wrapped up the opening ceremony.
The secretary general stated that the “Christmas cake” he hopes to be presented with this year, after two weeks of discussions, is divided into three parts: the foundation is comprised of actions for mitigating emissions of greenhouse gases, in a clear reference to the commitments of developing countries, particularly China, India, Brazil and South Africa.
The second part of the cake, according to Boer, would consist of targets for wealthy countries to cut down their current emissions, and to fund actions for poor countries to adapt their economies to the new clean, renewable technologies. The “cherry on top of the cake” would be a term of cooperation for all countries to develop coordinated global actions aiming to fight global warming.
The goal of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is to reduce global emissions by 25% to 40% by 2020, compared with the level of emissions released in 1990. The Conference started today in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The leader
Brazil arrived at the meeting with the commitment of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases by 36.1% to 39.8% up until 2020, and the challenge of being one of the mediators of divergence between developed and developing countries, in order to prevent the meeting from ending in failure.
The announcement of the Brazilian reduction target, made approximately one month ago, invalidated one of the main rationales for wealthy countries not to present ambitious reduction targets – namely, that large developing emitters would also have to implement greenhouse gas emission cuts. After the Brazilian target announcement, China and India announced voluntary reduction commitments. The United States have promised to cut down emissions by 17% by 2020.
The Brazilian target, which is voluntary, should prevent roughly 1 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases from being released into the atmosphere by 2020, according to government calculations. The most recent balance of emissions from the country, with data from the year 2000, shows that in 15 years, emissions n the country have grown 62%. Deforestation is still the main villain, so the government bases a significant share of the target around the goal of reducing clearings in the Amazon by 80%.
The establishment of a mechanism for reducing carbon loss in forests, the UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), is among the list of priorities for Brazilian negotiators at the COP. The inclusion of a mechanism for forests in the new global climate agreement is almost certain, what is left to be defined is how the countries that keep their woods standing are going to be funded.
The Brazilian delegation is headed by the Chief of Staff, Dilma Rousseff. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has also confirmed his attendance.
Energy matrix
After visiting Portugal, Ukraine and Germany last week, Lula stated on this Monday (7th) that the countries will need to change their energy matrixes, and that the new fuel “already has an origin,” referring to Brazilian ethanol and biodiesel.
In his weekly programme Breakfast with the President, he underscored that in Ukraine, he attended a meeting with businessmen and that the same took place in Germany – where the highlight was the debate on biofuels.
Lula claimed that the European Union committed to have all automobiles use 10% of ethanol mixed into gasoline by 2020 and that for such, the product will need to be purchased. “Even though Germany manufactures biodiesel, it cannot go on producing it from food. We had better look for another oleaginous plant that is not edible, and Brazil is a country that offers great opportunities,” he added.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
